It's worth remembering, whatever Descartes might have thought, the mind is at least partly biological too. If your brain says you're male or female then that is just as valid, if not more so, than your chromosomes or the contents of your underwear.
The same argument can be used by thosewho insistthey are Napoleon forthesole reason that they have a deep and inviolable conviction about it.
Thin ice.
Because association of the trans experience with the delusions associated with psychosis is so very helpful...
In the "traditional" bio sex = gender = genitals binary viewpoint, everybody agrees on which people are men and which people are women. We observe that the majority of men are sexually attracted to women, and call them straight. We observe that some men are sexually attracted to men, and call them gay, and we observe that some men are sexually attracted to both men and women, and call them bisexual.
There's no ambiguity here, and no questions.
Whereas when you start with that same viewpoint, trans people are trying to redefine what "man" and "woman" means. There's no logical challenge to the gender traditionalist for merely defining "transman" as "a person with female biology and a male self-image" - the challenge exists when you say that this person is a trans man, which is a subset of "man", because then you're redefining what a man is.
@Louise points out the complexity of the various intersex conditions. A lot of the biology = gender = sex camp get themselves in trouble by trying to force binary sex in a place where it clearly doesn't describe everyone. But there's no reason for biological essentialists to insist on a sexual binary. You can have a model of biological sex that says that most people are men or women, but some people aren't, and that's OK.
@Marvin the Martian you have been socialised to believe yourself a man because you have a penis. Having been socialised - if you had a terrible accident that left you as a head in a jar attached to complicated machines, you would probably still think of yourself as a man because that is what you have learnt and identified with over your life time. Your gender wouldn’t change, because your gender is in your head, a product of your mind not your body.
It is a social construct like marriage or speed limits, or privacy. Some set of circumstances leads us to pick a construct to use, but the construct itself is still a mental creation of society.
How people fit into a social construct can be thought of as a venn diagram - you’d need enough in common with other people using the same construct for it to be meaningful but if say, 6/10 things are true for you, they don’t have to be the same set of 6/10 things that are true for someone else.
It is also the case that social constructs change over time, for example, the age at which adulthood starts, whether women are property or persons etc.
There's no logical challenge to the gender traditionalist for merely defining "transman" as "a person with female biology and a male self-image" - the challenge exists when you say that this person is a trans man, which is a subset of "man", because then you're redefining what a man is.
Yes, exactly.
I've never had difficulty with the idea of someone being a "man in a woman's body" (or vice versa), or with anyone taking hormones and/or having surgery in order to match their biological reality to their internal self-identity. But the modern thinking that there's no such thing as inherently male or female biology feels rather different. I mean, to my mind if you are a man then an inherent part of that is not being able to carry a child to term in your womb. The idea that someone could want to be a man but also want to be able to get pregnant and give birth baffles me. It leaves me wondering what exactly they think "a man" is.
Sorry if I'm going too far in trying to explain my difficulties with this issue. I promise that these are genuine questions asked from a perspective of trying to achieve some sort of understanding.
@Marvin the Martian you have been socialised to believe yourself a man because you have a penis. Having been socialised - if you had a terrible accident that left you as a head in a jar attached to complicated machines, you would probably still think of yourself as a man because that is what you have learnt and identified with over your life time. Your gender wouldn’t change, because your gender is in your head, a product of your mind not your body.
Heh. Mrs C and I used to argue about the "brain in a jar" thing - she agreed with you. My case has always been that my sense of maleness is intimately connected to the fact that I have a male body, so my assumption was that if I became "brain in a jar", I wouldn't think of myself as a man any more.
And my assumption was that if I was somehow transplanted into a woman's body, I'd view myself as a woman (albeit one with lots of memories of being a man and no experience of being a woman, which would probably be weird.)
The question I was never able to answer was if I was somehow transplanted into a woman's body, would I be more likely to be a straight woman, or a lesbian. I don't have a good way of answering that.
It is a social construct like marriage or speed limits, or privacy. Some set of circumstances leads us to pick a construct to use, but the construct itself is still a mental creation of society.
Not completely. Ever since sexual reproduction became a thing there have been male and female members of each species that uses it for reproduction.
Yes, the societal roles and social constructs attached to those sexes are just mental contrivances, and I'm all for saying that there's no such thing as "man's work" or "a woman's place". But I find myself unable to deny that biological reality exists.
Biological reality is chromosomes and organs. Sex is an imperfect shorthand laid over the biological reality, not least because chromosomes don't necessarily match organs (including brains).
The question I was never able to answer was if I was somehow transplanted into a woman's body, would I be more likely to be a straight woman, or a lesbian. I don't have a good way of answering that.
A question that has genuinely kept me awake at night a couple of times is, if biology can't be used to determine my gender and there's no such thing as gender-specific roles or behaviors then how can I possibly know if I'm a straight cis man or a lesbian trans woman? Is it literally the case that the only difference between the two identities is which one I choose to identify with?
It's worth remembering, whatever Descartes might have thought, the mind is at least partly biological too. If your brain says you're male or female then that is just as valid, if not more so, than your chromosomes or the contents of your underwear.
The same argument can be used by thosewho insistthey are Napoleon forthesole reason that they have a deep and inviolable conviction about it.
Thin ice.
Because association of the trans experience with the delusions associated with psychosis is so very helpful...
Without wanting to aquabble the same applies to your comment.
It's worth remembering, whatever Descartes might have thought, the mind is at least partly biological too. If your brain says you're male or female then that is just as valid, if not more so, than your chromosomes or the contents of your underwear.
The same argument can be used by thosewho insistthey are Napoleon forthesole reason that they have a deep and inviolable conviction about it.
Thin ice.
Because association of the trans experience with the delusions associated with psychosis is so very helpful...
Without wanting to aquabble the same applies to your comment.
Karl makes a good point, though. People have tried for years to treat trans people as mentally ill, and their behaviour doesn't match that, nor does the response to attempted "treatment". All the evidence points to trans people's mental health improving when their identity is accepted whereas (correct me if I'm wrong, I'm not a psychiatrist) accepting delusions tends to make them worse, not better.
In that sense accepting trans people as who they say they are is simply the practical solution.
Indeed. There is ample evidence throughout history that the human mind is perfectly capable of error. In the absence of external verification, I don't see how we can assert with confidence that anything it says is correct.
This is my style of thinking too. In fact, I could have said this whole paragraph myself before though it's not where I am right now. So of course I ask myself how I know I'm nonbinary and whether I was right to change my pronouns. The best answer I have is that I am happier and mentally healthier for having made the change. In other words, looking at external markers that I value, the evidence says that the change is an improvement. Once I recognized that I was NB and started implementing changes in my life to fit that, I found ways I was faking it to fit what I thought I should be. In my case, being nonbinary is mostly about being freed from the label of female that was constricting me. So external verification says I should not doubt myself. I am indeed who I think I am and living fully into myself leads to a better life.
And feel free to push back on that if you feel like it, I think this conversation is great, and am not vulnerable about this.
You really would be best asking that question of a lesbian trans woman, in all seriousness.
This is the place I’m most likely to encounter one.
I think they might be reluctant to post while people are drawing comparison with symptoms of schizophrenia. That's the problem with the Napoleon thing.
It's a common trope used by transphobes to deny the existence of trans people.
A question that has genuinely kept me awake at night a couple of times is, if biology can't be used to determine my gender and there's no such thing as gender-specific roles or behaviors then how can I possibly know if I'm a straight cis man or a lesbian trans woman? Is it literally the case that the only difference between the two identities is which one I choose to identify with?
If you lived your life as a lesbian trans woman, would it be better? Would it feel more accurate? If the answer is, that various people would see you differently but otherwise it would not be more or less accurate, perhaps you are not very gendered. I know someone who says he goes with being a guy because why not. It's the easiest way to be considering how he was born.
The question I was never able to answer was if I was somehow transplanted into a woman's body, would I be more likely to be a straight woman, or a lesbian. I don't have a good way of answering that.
A question that has genuinely kept me awake at night a couple of times is, if biology can't be used to determine my gender and there's no such thing as gender-specific roles or behaviors then how can I possibly know if I'm a straight cis man or a lesbian trans woman?
So I think in some ways it's quite healthy to identify your gender based on a particular characteristic you possess, certainly much more so than trying to live up to a constructed idea of 'masculinity'.
But presumably - as in the thought experiment @Doublethink outlines above - there's more that anchors you to being a man right now than just the possession of a particular genital configuration ? So maybe your own internal sense of 'maleness' is a better signifier of your gender?
Part of the issue is that the traditional view of 'masculinity' is nearly as constricted as traditional view of 'femininity', but we've spent correspondingly less time interrogating it and are less comfortable with the practice of doing so because of the fear that is inherently feminine. We can seek to extend and challenge the boundaries of both without necessarily wanting to change gender
A question that has genuinely kept me awake at night a couple of times is, if biology can't be used to determine my gender and there's no such thing as gender-specific roles or behaviors then how can I possibly know if I'm a straight cis man or a lesbian trans woman? Is it literally the case that the only difference between the two identities is which one I choose to identify with?
If you lived your life as a lesbian trans woman, would it be better? Would it feel more accurate? If the answer is, that various people would see you differently but otherwise it would not be more or less accurate, perhaps you are not very gendered. I know someone who says he goes with being a guy because why not. It's the easiest way to be considering how he was born.
As I am the one being referred to, I figure I'll speak for myself.
I think I sometimes self ID as "lazy queer," which isn't necessarily a term other folks might appreciate, but meh. I'm biologically male, never had any doubts about that, attracted to people who present as female. Very straightforward, no pun intended.
But at the same time, I frankly do not give a flying fuck about any of the trappings or errata. I don't need to do guy things do prove I'm a guy. Feminine things tend to be less appealing but - I'm pretty sure - if I was raised in a culture where wearing dresses was normal for people of my appearance...sure. Whatever. I do what works for me and don't bother with applying labels to it.
This is what I call lazy queer. It's simply convenient for me to present as male. I get the impression that presenting as female takes more work and I have enough to do without messing with my presentation.
Along similar lines, if someone else comes out to to me as trans or gay or any "other" identity, there's a preceding question. Am I in a relationship with this person where their identity is my personal business? Generally, the answer for me is simply "no." To get really nitty gritty, if I'm not in a sexual relationship with someone, what they do with or about their junk is irrelevant to me. And far as social trappings, their body isn't my business to run. Got enough to do running my own.
I can still remember being a little freaked out by trans people, who I started encountering in undergrad. Pre-college I grew up in a small town where it wasn't socially acceptable to be openly gay, let alone trans, so I was still getting my head around gay people for a while. Anecdotally, for some reason, I think male-to-female types bothered me more than female to male (and at that point I knew one of each, so not much to go on scientifically,) but I learned to mind my own business. And having since gotten to know some of these folks over years, they're fine as anyone is.*
There are just very, very few social situations where who someone is is my concern beyond how to respectfully address them. And the best way to show honest respect for someone else's personal space is to let them have it. It's their property, not mine. My usual response to someone transitioning is "welp, I'm glad you got that sorted for yourself. I'm happy for you."
Not sure if this helps, but that's how I've learned to handle it.
* Honestly, most of the biggest jerks I've encountered in life were straight white guys, which gives me some thought about which social categories I should be uncomfortable with, even being a straight white guy myself.
A question that has genuinely kept me awake at night a couple of times is, if biology can't be used to determine my gender and there's no such thing as gender-specific roles or behaviors then how can I possibly know if I'm a straight cis man or a lesbian trans woman? Is it literally the case that the only difference between the two identities is which one I choose to identify with?
If you lived your life as a lesbian trans woman, would it be better? Would it feel more accurate?
I think the question I’m asking is even more fundamental than that, actually - it’s more along the lines of “other than a few minor peripherals like which pronouns I use and which sign is on the door of the toilet I piss in, what about my life would actually be different?” I can’t think of anything I’m doing now that I’d have to stop doing, or anything I can’t do now that I could start doing, if I identified as a woman.
Maybe I am another “lazy queer” (nice phrase, bullfrog 😁).
I feel very much that way about my gender @Marvin the Martian I’ve always disliked any pressure to present as - for want of a better description - “high femme”. But, although I am gay, I don’t really present as stereotypically butch. I am currently fully dressed but basically in stuff I bought from the men’s section of various shops - grey trousers and a black jumper are pretty much uncoded gender wise.
I tend to end up buying men’s clothes a lot because I like darker colours with less pattern and a longer length in the body of tops. Plus men’s trousers have pockets big enough to carry an iPad mini.
@Marvin the Martian if you are not very gendered* that would fit. I used to theorize that gender is just a social construction. But that fails, even though it feels right to me, because some people consider the fact and find they really like having a binary gender. For instance my mom is totally accepting of her queer kids. But she feels strongly that she is a woman and that her life is improved by that fact. Now, my mom is very much not femme. She's retired to an RV to hike around the country for fuck's sake. I doubt she owns a dress--no room--and maybe not makeup. So why does she like being a woman? I have no idea, but I accept that is more accurate, and I am glad of it.
*I tend to assume that how gendered one is functions on a spectrum
A question that has genuinely kept me awake at night a couple of times is, if biology can't be used to determine my gender and there's no such thing as gender-specific roles or behaviors then how can I possibly know if I'm a straight cis man or a lesbian trans woman? Is it literally the case that the only difference between the two identities is which one I choose to identify with?
If you lived your life as a lesbian trans woman, would it be better? Would it feel more accurate?
I think the question I’m asking is even more fundamental than that, actually - it’s more along the lines of “other than a few minor peripherals like which pronouns I use and which sign is on the door of the toilet I piss in, what about my life would actually be different?” I can’t think of anything I’m doing now that I’d have to stop doing, or anything I can’t do now that I could start doing, if I identified as a woman.
Maybe I am another “lazy queer” (nice phrase, bullfrog 😁).
Happy to oblige. I don't think I've ever heard anyone else use it, so I'll take credit.
Once I recognized that I was NB and started implementing changes in my life to fit that, I found ways I was faking it to fit what I thought I should be.
Feel free not to answer, of course, but I’d be very interested in knowing what sort of things you changed. I’ve been brought up since the 80s with the idea that everyone should be able to do, wear, go (etc.) whatever and wherever they like without having to conform to outdated gender roles, and part of my discomfort is that it almost feels like current gender theory is moving away from that towards the idea that there are specific roles, behaviours and appearances that apply only to one gender, but people can now choose which gender they want to be rather than which roles/behaviours/appearances they want to fulfil.
Does that make sense? I’m not sure I’ve phrased it exactly right, but I hope I got the underlying meaning across.
It's worth remembering, whatever Descartes might have thought, the mind is at least partly biological too. If your brain says you're male or female then that is just as valid, if not more so, than your chromosomes or the contents of your underwear.
The same argument can be used by thosewho insistthey are Napoleon forthesole reason that they have a deep and inviolable conviction about it.
Thin ice.
Because association of the trans experience with the delusions associated with psychosis is so very helpful...
Without wanting to aquabble the same applies to your comment.
Karl makes a good point, though. People have tried for years to treat trans people as mentally ill, and their behaviour doesn't match that, nor does the response to attempted "treatment". All the evidence points to trans people's mental health improving when their identity is accepted whereas (correct me if I'm wrong, I'm not a psychiatrist) accepting delusions tends to make them worse, not better.
In that sense accepting trans people as who they say they are is simply the practical solution.
Thank you. I get that.
My Napoleon thing was a clumsy attempt to try to discern what the difference is, not an attempt to imply that trans is mental illness.
I feel very much that way about my gender @Marvin the Martian I’ve always disliked any pressure to present as - for want of a better description - “high femme”. But, although I am gay, I don’t really present as stereotypically butch. I am currently fully dressed but basically in stuff I bought from the men’s section of various shops - grey trousers and a black jumper are pretty much uncoded gender wise.
I tend to end up buying men’s clothes a lot because I like darker colours with less pattern and a longer length in the body of tops. Plus men’s trousers have pockets big enough to carry an iPad mini.
I think it's a serious thing in "western" society that the way men dress is considered to be default "neutral" in professional settings, but the way women dress is considered more of a "presentation."
Like how a woman in pants is generally socially acceptable outside of strange conservative circles, but a guy in a skirt is still considered outre.
Which is why I feel like my own male presentation is somewhat a defaulting to ordinary rather than a statement about who I am. Pants with big pockets are simply practical. Skirts are cumbersome.
@Marvin the Martian Absolutely. But I warn you that you may not find any of these changes meaningful. If you don't experience social pressure to do these things, I predict that you will find it silly or comical that I did them against my will.
I don't speak what some of my friends call womaneze.* I don't try to sing soprano or alto. (I'm naturally a bad contralto so it's easiest to sing as a tenor in church.) I don't wear dresses. I don't wear skirts. I don't wear make up. I wear my hair short, and may wear it shorter yet if I can persuade my gut that it's safe and not inherently ugly.** I paid someone to make my masculine-style dress clothes that fit my form....
I'm not always sure what shows from the outside, so I asked my spouse. Here's his words "You seem more confident? And yeah womaneze... I think mostly it's the social role stuff."
So I guess from the outside I mostly seem more confident. But I guess that's a good thing too.
*Link to an article I find somewhat incorrect and somewhat misogynist but explains the general concept better than anything else I can find right now: https://www.divedeeperdevelopment.com/blog/linguistic-rituals
**My internal irregular verb says that They look fabulous with very very short hair. She looks just fine in it and should wear what she likes. I would look terrible. (And just for gender reasons.)
@Marvin the Martian Absolutely. But I warn you that you may not find any of these changes meaningful. If you don't experience social pressure to do these things, I predict that you will find it silly or comical that I did them against my will.
Not at all. I fully appreciate that pressures to fulfil social roles that you don’t want to be fulfilling are awful.
It’s just that, as I said earlier, I have been brought up to see that as a reason to eliminate gender-based social roles rather than to determine people’s gender based on which roles they want to fulfil. There are things about being a man I’m not comfortable with, and there are things about being a woman that I would be more comfortable with, but I think that’s because society and it’s expectations are still ridiculously sexist rather than because I’m the wrong gender.
Like how a woman in pants is generally socially acceptable outside of strange conservative circles, but a guy in a skirt is still considered outre.
There are a fair number of places where a guy in a kilt wouldn't raise an eyebrow, though, and a kilt is just a male-coded skirt.
I spend a fair amount of my time crawling around on the floor for one reason or another. Trousers are a much more practical garment for that. I own a kilt, which I used to wear on some dressy occasions, but unfortunately my waistline now exceeds its capacity.
There are things about being a man I’m not comfortable with, and there are things about being a woman that I would be more comfortable with, but I think that’s because society and it’s expectations are still ridiculously sexist rather than because I’m the wrong gender.
Being able to diagnose that suggests you have some kind of inner intuition that you are already the right gender, so I wonder in what sense you are actually reliant on biology.
I agree I probably overstated by saying the "vast majority" rather than just a "majority" of us feel that our gender aligns with our biological sex. I think people who are out as transgender or non-binary are a very tiny proportion of the population, but there are probably many more who feel that lack of alignment but for various reasons aren't "out" about it.
This conversation here is fascinating to me as I'm currently trying to understand the experience of a young person very close to me, assigned male at birth, who has just come out as trans and is using a very feminine-sounding name and she/they pronouns. I find it a bit disconcerting that while my general position is always "support trans people and believe them when they talk about their experience," many of my gut reactions are much more similar to the questions that @Marvin the Martian is raising. I keep thinking (but of course not saying!): "OK, but if you want to wear your hair long and wear skirts occasionally etc, can't you just do that while being a man, only a man who doesn't conform to these narrow societal gender roles?"
I'm finding @Gwai's contributions here very helpful, with the "Would it be better? Would it feel more accurate?" question. This fits very well with what this young person has been telling me, that they are trying new things (like wearing a skirt, or introducing themselves by their new name at a new job) and then sitting those changes for awhile to see how they feel.
It's all very different to me -- like a lot of us in this discussion (I relate most to @Gwai's mom as described above) in that I am absolutely sure that I am a woman, but don't relate to a lot of the typical gender expectations of what "woman" means in our society. So there's that adjustment for me in appreciating how gender has quite a different meaning for someone else -- but as with most things, a lot of it is about listening to other people's experience and accepting that what they're saying is true for them even if it's unfamiliar to me.
I guess my response would be to ask why them wearing dresses as a man would be preferable to them having a female/feminine gender? For me it just doesn't seem like a relevant question - like if I was eating scrambled eggs and someone asked why I couldn't just eat fried eggs instead. It's OK to choose to do something just because that's what you want. I do feel like part of the general discomfort with transfeminine people is that purposeful femininity is seen as suspect/less feminist/deviant in men or those perceived as men, while masculinity is seen as 'neutral'.
Also it should be pointed out that passing as a particular gender is often tied to safety issues even if the trans person themselves is less bothered about gender norms. Being super-feminine in particular is unfortunately often about trying to stay alive for trans women - look at the person attending support meetings for rape victims who was accused of being trans because she wore trousers and a sweatshirt! It can also be an issue for those seeking gender affirming healthcare - in the UK you are expected to live as your 'acquired gender' for at least a year before you can go on hormones, even though hormones do most of the work in terms of passing and often more than even surgery does (aside from top surgery for transmasculine people because you could be 6 foot tall with a big Gandalf beard and still get referred to as 'madam' if you have any kind of bosom). Trans women have been denied hormones for going to meetings with gender clinicians in jeans rather than a dress.
Yes, and to follow up what you say about the woman in trousers and a sweatshirt, one of the things about anti-trans prejudice, as well as being bad in itself, it also makes anyone who is gender-nonconforming less safe: a butch woman or a feminine man or a non binary person who gets read in those ways is more liable to be attacked because they can be perceived as a trans person and trans people are being demonised as threats, and attacks on them being legitimated.
So if people want other folk to feel free to challenge gender norms on appearance and behaviour, it's important to stand up to anti-trans prejudice.
I guess my response would be to ask why them wearing dresses as a man would be preferable to them having a female/feminine gender? For me it just doesn't seem like a relevant question - like if I was eating scrambled eggs and someone asked why I couldn't just eat fried eggs instead. It's OK to choose to do something just because that's what you want.
Yes, exactly ... that’s why my own reaction surprised me, because it’s irrational, and really just about my own discomfort. What you said about it being okay to choose something just because you want it is slmost exactly what they said to me when we were talking.
It’s different from the way I learned to think about trans people — that the only reason for transitioning would be such unbearable dysphoria that the person couldn’t go on existing like that and felt transitioning was their only option. It’s still kind of new to me to think about gender as a preference like scrambled vs fried eggs.
So it’s really all about listening, learning, questioning my own reactions and assumptions.
I do feel like part of the general discomfort with transfeminine people is that purposeful femininity is seen as suspect/less feminist/deviant in men or those perceived as men, while masculinity is seen as 'neutral'.
I can definitely see this. Even for cisgender people there’s far more freedom for women to transgress gender norms in terms of dress and appearance than for men — partly, I guess, to do with femininity having less perceived social status/power.
Also it should be pointed out that passing as a particular gender is often tied to safety issues even if the trans person themselves is less bothered about gender norms. Being super-feminine in particular is unfortunately often about trying to stay alive for trans women.
This is a perspective I wouldn’t even have thought of ... which just underlines what I said earlier about my own need to listen and learn.
Like how a woman in pants is generally socially acceptable outside of strange conservative circles, but a guy in a skirt is still considered outre.
There are a fair number of places where a guy in a kilt wouldn't raise an eyebrow, though, and a kilt is just a male-coded skirt.
I spend a fair amount of my time crawling around on the floor for one reason or another. Trousers are a much more practical garment for that. I own a kilt, which I used to wear on some dressy occasions, but unfortunately my waistline now exceeds its capacity.
I have a friend who is a guy who also likes to wear skirts. And he laughed hard telling us tales of other guys who would loudly insist that he was wearing a kilt when - matter of fact - what he was wearing was a skirt.
Personally, I also prefer trousers because I don't like having to be mindful of the position of my body when I'm about doing things.
I guess my response would be to ask why them wearing dresses as a man would be preferable to them having a female/feminine gender?
I think for me that would be because being male/female is a far more fundamental part of someone's ontological existence than merely which clothes they wear or how long their hair is. Like someone saying they're going to move house because they don't like the wallpaper in their lounge - I mean, yes, it's one option, but it has all sorts of costs attached and means complete upheaval of your entire life which seems a bit extreme when you could just put up new wallpaper instead.
For me it just doesn't seem like a relevant question - like if I was eating scrambled eggs and someone asked why I couldn't just eat fried eggs instead. It's OK to choose to do something just because that's what you want.
Sorry, I'm confused again. I'd so far understood people to be saying that gender identity is an inherent part of who someone is and has always been - and therefore it's wrong to question that identity as if it's merely something the person has decided to be. But here it's being compared to an utterly unimportant choice like how someone cooks their eggs. It feels like the rules keep changing and I'm really struggling to keep up, if I'm honest.
I'm finding @Gwai's contributions here very helpful, with the "Would it be better? Would it feel more accurate?" question. This fits very well with what this young person has been telling me, that they are trying new things (like wearing a skirt, or introducing themselves by their new name at a new job) and then sitting those changes for awhile to see how they feel.
Let me only add that I don't want to erase the line of thinking that correct gender is necessary for life. It is for some people. But for others, it leads to sanity and increased health. And that's good too.
@Marvin the Martian Obviously I am not Pomona but my read of what they are saying is that the expression of the gender is a choice. The gender itself is not a choice. But we all express parts of ourselves more or less, including our gender. Think of a dramatic boy who decides to play football not act because he likes both and being good at football is more encouraged by his society. He is expressing the more masculine side of himself more although both sides are real.
I guess my response would be to ask why them wearing dresses as a man would be preferable to them having a female/feminine gender?
I think for me that would be because being male/female is a far more fundamental part of someone's ontological existence than merely which clothes they wear or how long their hair is. Like someone saying they're going to move house because they don't like the wallpaper in their lounge - I mean, yes, it's one option, but it has all sorts of costs attached and means complete upheaval of your entire life which seems a bit extreme when you could just put up new wallpaper instead.
For me it just doesn't seem like a relevant question - like if I was eating scrambled eggs and someone asked why I couldn't just eat fried eggs instead. It's OK to choose to do something just because that's what you want.
Sorry, I'm confused again. I'd so far understood people to be saying that gender identity is an inherent part of who someone is and has always been - and therefore it's wrong to question that identity as if it's merely something the person has decided to be. But here it's being compared to an utterly unimportant choice like how someone cooks their eggs. It feels like the rules keep changing and I'm really struggling to keep up, if I'm honest.
I admit (with apologies to Pomona) that I found the comparison to fried vs. scrambled eggs unhelpful. As I've said before in these parts IME gender identity is something deep-seated and resistant to change and the analogy doesn't really capture that.
Two comments on the issue of choice.
As a matter of common sense, the less stigmatized something is, the more likely it is to be chosen or perceived as chosen. I think many of the important choices we make about our lives (e.g., decisions about what career we want to pursue) are influenced by innate factors beyond our control - or at least should be influenced by these factors if they are going to be good choices for us. But nobody tries to parse out how much of the decision whether to become a doctor or lawyer is due to innate factors.
The other comment is that the concepts of autonomy and choice play increasingly important roles and liberal and progressive thinking and I worry about the potential for this to distort our thinking on a number of issues, not least of them gender identity.
@Marvin the Martian Obviously I am not Pomona but my read of what they are saying is that the expression of the gender is a choice. The gender itself is not a choice. But we all express parts of ourselves more or less, including our gender. Think of a dramatic boy who decides to play football not act because he likes both and being good at football is more encouraged by his society. He is expressing the more masculine side of himself more although both sides are real.
Indeed.
My daughter has a friend who was AFAB, identifies as a boy but presents as a girl (hairstyle, clothes etc.) I don't know that his gender identity is settled yet, to be honest, but there it is. It's much more complicated you might imagine.
With identity, I've mostly learned to handle people on a case-by-case basis. Each person is their own particular mix up and, within a certain intimacy, it's usually dangerous to generalize.
To that extent, gender is a social construct for social purpose. The degree to which I need to get invested or involved in someone else's personal identity depends on how socially close I am with them, and for most people, it just doesn't become relevant beyond "this person wants me to refer to their person as a they, so I ought to do that." That's all that's really needed for most situations, I think.
@Marvin the Martian Obviously I am not Pomona but my read of what they are saying is that the expression of the gender is a choice. The gender itself is not a choice.
I may have read it wrong, but I thought the scenario was of a boy who wanted to wear skirts and have long hair therefore deciding they had to be (or become) a girl.
But we all express parts of ourselves more or less, including our gender. Think of a dramatic boy who decides to play football not act because he likes both and being good at football is more encouraged by his society. He is expressing the more masculine side of himself more although both sides are real.
As someone whose wife played at a fairly decent level of amateur football back in the day I wouldn't go along with it being associated with being more masculine*, and for that matter I'd say people like Daniel Craig or Harrison Ford are hardly less masculine because they act. And if society says otherwise then I say society is wrong.
But I think that points towards a significant part of where my difficulty with this subject comes from. I don't really think that any activities, fashions, hairstyles, or so forth are inherently masculine or feminine, which to my mind makes them poor reasons to change gender. I mean, I grew up in the 80s watching Boy George on Top of The Pops and loving how his appearance tore apart conservative notions of how boys should dress and act**. It feels like in the Twenty20s a similar person would just come out as female, which to me feels like an affirmation of those conservative notions - it says that if you want to act this way then you have to be a boy and if you want to act that way then you have to be a girl. It feels like the same old restrictive boxes are back, but with a bit of a bridge between them so you can decide which one to be restricted by.
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*= Of course, I'm in the UK so what we mean by "football" may differ.
**= not that I'd have phrased it as such at the time. I was only four or five when Karma Chameleon was released.
Think of a dramatic boy who decides to play football not act because he likes both and being good at football is more encouraged by his society. He is expressing the more masculine side of himself more although both sides are real.
Is football inherently more masculine than acting, or is that purely social conditioning? I suppose if you're someone who thinks that gender is a purely social construct, then this question doesn't make much sense.
I may have read it wrong, but I thought the scenario was of a boy who wanted to wear skirts and have long hair therefore deciding they had to be (or become) a girl.
In this specific case I think Pomona was referring to the situation I
raised: a young person born biologically male (AMAB, I guess, might be the better term) who is coming out as either a trans woman or gender fluid (not sure how they would identify at the moment), using a female-sounding name and she/they pronouns. The only really obvious differences I've observed since their transition is that they have grown their hair long and occasionally wear skirts. My immediate (unspoken) reaction was that they could just be a guy with long hair who wears skirts, but I realize that for them it's about much more than that. They do identify as female, or at least not-male, even if I don't fully understand what that means for them at this point.
Reading some of the discussions here, as well as following trans people on Twitter and reading articles they write or recommend, is part of my own attempt to better understand the actual trans and non-binary people in my life, particularly the one closest to me. I do think the issue of what's "chosen" vs "born this way" is a bit of a fraught area and probably a difficult one for cis folks to understand.
I get the question as whether football is inherently masculine.* But n the end, I think it may be missing the point. If our society sees Joe, a "tough" guy who plays football, gets into bar fights, and lifts weights as more masculine than Bob who dances ballet, acts in theater, and is very in touch with his feelings, that perception affects people. It doesn't matter whether it's a reasonable perception. Now I don't think people transition gender because they like to dance and act. But that doesn't mean it doesn't affect how they think. Maybe Bob feels they might be nonbinary. Bob can look at their pursuits and know they won't lose anything by transitioning while Joe may know their community would at best laugh at them.
*Here American football is seen as activity very very few women engage in, but soccer much less so.
Comments
Yes, of course. Hence the need for reliable independent confirmation.
How does that work for being gay?
Would it be needed?
Because association of the trans experience with the delusions associated with psychosis is so very helpful...
I'm not sure it is ever needed.
I don't think the two cases have the same logic.
In the "traditional" bio sex = gender = genitals binary viewpoint, everybody agrees on which people are men and which people are women. We observe that the majority of men are sexually attracted to women, and call them straight. We observe that some men are sexually attracted to men, and call them gay, and we observe that some men are sexually attracted to both men and women, and call them bisexual.
There's no ambiguity here, and no questions.
Whereas when you start with that same viewpoint, trans people are trying to redefine what "man" and "woman" means. There's no logical challenge to the gender traditionalist for merely defining "transman" as "a person with female biology and a male self-image" - the challenge exists when you say that this person is a trans man, which is a subset of "man", because then you're redefining what a man is.
@Louise points out the complexity of the various intersex conditions. A lot of the biology = gender = sex camp get themselves in trouble by trying to force binary sex in a place where it clearly doesn't describe everyone. But there's no reason for biological essentialists to insist on a sexual binary. You can have a model of biological sex that says that most people are men or women, but some people aren't, and that's OK.
@Marvin the Martian you have been socialised to believe yourself a man because you have a penis. Having been socialised - if you had a terrible accident that left you as a head in a jar attached to complicated machines, you would probably still think of yourself as a man because that is what you have learnt and identified with over your life time. Your gender wouldn’t change, because your gender is in your head, a product of your mind not your body.
It is a social construct like marriage or speed limits, or privacy. Some set of circumstances leads us to pick a construct to use, but the construct itself is still a mental creation of society.
How people fit into a social construct can be thought of as a venn diagram - you’d need enough in common with other people using the same construct for it to be meaningful but if say, 6/10 things are true for you, they don’t have to be the same set of 6/10 things that are true for someone else.
It is also the case that social constructs change over time, for example, the age at which adulthood starts, whether women are property or persons etc.
Yes, exactly.
I've never had difficulty with the idea of someone being a "man in a woman's body" (or vice versa), or with anyone taking hormones and/or having surgery in order to match their biological reality to their internal self-identity. But the modern thinking that there's no such thing as inherently male or female biology feels rather different. I mean, to my mind if you are a man then an inherent part of that is not being able to carry a child to term in your womb. The idea that someone could want to be a man but also want to be able to get pregnant and give birth baffles me. It leaves me wondering what exactly they think "a man" is.
Heh. Mrs C and I used to argue about the "brain in a jar" thing - she agreed with you. My case has always been that my sense of maleness is intimately connected to the fact that I have a male body, so my assumption was that if I became "brain in a jar", I wouldn't think of myself as a man any more.
And my assumption was that if I was somehow transplanted into a woman's body, I'd view myself as a woman (albeit one with lots of memories of being a man and no experience of being a woman, which would probably be weird.)
The question I was never able to answer was if I was somehow transplanted into a woman's body, would I be more likely to be a straight woman, or a lesbian. I don't have a good way of answering that.
Not completely. Ever since sexual reproduction became a thing there have been male and female members of each species that uses it for reproduction.
Yes, the societal roles and social constructs attached to those sexes are just mental contrivances, and I'm all for saying that there's no such thing as "man's work" or "a woman's place". But I find myself unable to deny that biological reality exists.
A question that has genuinely kept me awake at night a couple of times is, if biology can't be used to determine my gender and there's no such thing as gender-specific roles or behaviors then how can I possibly know if I'm a straight cis man or a lesbian trans woman? Is it literally the case that the only difference between the two identities is which one I choose to identify with?
Without wanting to aquabble the same applies to your comment.
Karl makes a good point, though. People have tried for years to treat trans people as mentally ill, and their behaviour doesn't match that, nor does the response to attempted "treatment". All the evidence points to trans people's mental health improving when their identity is accepted whereas (correct me if I'm wrong, I'm not a psychiatrist) accepting delusions tends to make them worse, not better.
In that sense accepting trans people as who they say they are is simply the practical solution.
This is the place I’m most likely to encounter one.
This is my style of thinking too. In fact, I could have said this whole paragraph myself before though it's not where I am right now. So of course I ask myself how I know I'm nonbinary and whether I was right to change my pronouns. The best answer I have is that I am happier and mentally healthier for having made the change. In other words, looking at external markers that I value, the evidence says that the change is an improvement. Once I recognized that I was NB and started implementing changes in my life to fit that, I found ways I was faking it to fit what I thought I should be. In my case, being nonbinary is mostly about being freed from the label of female that was constricting me. So external verification says I should not doubt myself. I am indeed who I think I am and living fully into myself leads to a better life.
And feel free to push back on that if you feel like it, I think this conversation is great, and am not vulnerable about this.
I think they might be reluctant to post while people are drawing comparison with symptoms of schizophrenia. That's the problem with the Napoleon thing.
It's a common trope used by transphobes to deny the existence of trans people.
If you lived your life as a lesbian trans woman, would it be better? Would it feel more accurate? If the answer is, that various people would see you differently but otherwise it would not be more or less accurate, perhaps you are not very gendered. I know someone who says he goes with being a guy because why not. It's the easiest way to be considering how he was born.
So I think in some ways it's quite healthy to identify your gender based on a particular characteristic you possess, certainly much more so than trying to live up to a constructed idea of 'masculinity'.
But presumably - as in the thought experiment @Doublethink outlines above - there's more that anchors you to being a man right now than just the possession of a particular genital configuration ? So maybe your own internal sense of 'maleness' is a better signifier of your gender?
Part of the issue is that the traditional view of 'masculinity' is nearly as constricted as traditional view of 'femininity', but we've spent correspondingly less time interrogating it and are less comfortable with the practice of doing so because of the fear that is inherently feminine. We can seek to extend and challenge the boundaries of both without necessarily wanting to change gender
As I am the one being referred to, I figure I'll speak for myself.
I think I sometimes self ID as "lazy queer," which isn't necessarily a term other folks might appreciate, but meh. I'm biologically male, never had any doubts about that, attracted to people who present as female. Very straightforward, no pun intended.
But at the same time, I frankly do not give a flying fuck about any of the trappings or errata. I don't need to do guy things do prove I'm a guy. Feminine things tend to be less appealing but - I'm pretty sure - if I was raised in a culture where wearing dresses was normal for people of my appearance...sure. Whatever. I do what works for me and don't bother with applying labels to it.
This is what I call lazy queer. It's simply convenient for me to present as male. I get the impression that presenting as female takes more work and I have enough to do without messing with my presentation.
Along similar lines, if someone else comes out to to me as trans or gay or any "other" identity, there's a preceding question. Am I in a relationship with this person where their identity is my personal business? Generally, the answer for me is simply "no." To get really nitty gritty, if I'm not in a sexual relationship with someone, what they do with or about their junk is irrelevant to me. And far as social trappings, their body isn't my business to run. Got enough to do running my own.
I can still remember being a little freaked out by trans people, who I started encountering in undergrad. Pre-college I grew up in a small town where it wasn't socially acceptable to be openly gay, let alone trans, so I was still getting my head around gay people for a while. Anecdotally, for some reason, I think male-to-female types bothered me more than female to male (and at that point I knew one of each, so not much to go on scientifically,) but I learned to mind my own business. And having since gotten to know some of these folks over years, they're fine as anyone is.*
There are just very, very few social situations where who someone is is my concern beyond how to respectfully address them. And the best way to show honest respect for someone else's personal space is to let them have it. It's their property, not mine. My usual response to someone transitioning is "welp, I'm glad you got that sorted for yourself. I'm happy for you."
Not sure if this helps, but that's how I've learned to handle it.
* Honestly, most of the biggest jerks I've encountered in life were straight white guys, which gives me some thought about which social categories I should be uncomfortable with, even being a straight white guy myself.
I think the question I’m asking is even more fundamental than that, actually - it’s more along the lines of “other than a few minor peripherals like which pronouns I use and which sign is on the door of the toilet I piss in, what about my life would actually be different?” I can’t think of anything I’m doing now that I’d have to stop doing, or anything I can’t do now that I could start doing, if I identified as a woman.
Maybe I am another “lazy queer” (nice phrase, bullfrog 😁).
I tend to end up buying men’s clothes a lot because I like darker colours with less pattern and a longer length in the body of tops. Plus men’s trousers have pockets big enough to carry an iPad mini.
*I tend to assume that how gendered one is functions on a spectrum
Happy to oblige. I don't think I've ever heard anyone else use it, so I'll take credit.
Feel free not to answer, of course, but I’d be very interested in knowing what sort of things you changed. I’ve been brought up since the 80s with the idea that everyone should be able to do, wear, go (etc.) whatever and wherever they like without having to conform to outdated gender roles, and part of my discomfort is that it almost feels like current gender theory is moving away from that towards the idea that there are specific roles, behaviours and appearances that apply only to one gender, but people can now choose which gender they want to be rather than which roles/behaviours/appearances they want to fulfil.
Does that make sense? I’m not sure I’ve phrased it exactly right, but I hope I got the underlying meaning across.
Thank you. I get that.
My Napoleon thing was a clumsy attempt to try to discern what the difference is, not an attempt to imply that trans is mental illness.
I think it's a serious thing in "western" society that the way men dress is considered to be default "neutral" in professional settings, but the way women dress is considered more of a "presentation."
Like how a woman in pants is generally socially acceptable outside of strange conservative circles, but a guy in a skirt is still considered outre.
Which is why I feel like my own male presentation is somewhat a defaulting to ordinary rather than a statement about who I am. Pants with big pockets are simply practical. Skirts are cumbersome.
I don't speak what some of my friends call womaneze.* I don't try to sing soprano or alto. (I'm naturally a bad contralto so it's easiest to sing as a tenor in church.) I don't wear dresses. I don't wear skirts. I don't wear make up. I wear my hair short, and may wear it shorter yet if I can persuade my gut that it's safe and not inherently ugly.** I paid someone to make my masculine-style dress clothes that fit my form....
I'm not always sure what shows from the outside, so I asked my spouse. Here's his words "You seem more confident? And yeah womaneze... I think mostly it's the social role stuff."
So I guess from the outside I mostly seem more confident. But I guess that's a good thing too.
*Link to an article I find somewhat incorrect and somewhat misogynist but explains the general concept better than anything else I can find right now: https://www.divedeeperdevelopment.com/blog/linguistic-rituals
**My internal irregular verb says that They look fabulous with very very short hair. She looks just fine in it and should wear what she likes. I would look terrible. (And just for gender reasons.)
Not at all. I fully appreciate that pressures to fulfil social roles that you don’t want to be fulfilling are awful.
It’s just that, as I said earlier, I have been brought up to see that as a reason to eliminate gender-based social roles rather than to determine people’s gender based on which roles they want to fulfil. There are things about being a man I’m not comfortable with, and there are things about being a woman that I would be more comfortable with, but I think that’s because society and it’s expectations are still ridiculously sexist rather than because I’m the wrong gender.
There are a fair number of places where a guy in a kilt wouldn't raise an eyebrow, though, and a kilt is just a male-coded skirt.
I spend a fair amount of my time crawling around on the floor for one reason or another. Trousers are a much more practical garment for that. I own a kilt, which I used to wear on some dressy occasions, but unfortunately my waistline now exceeds its capacity.
Being able to diagnose that suggests you have some kind of inner intuition that you are already the right gender, so I wonder in what sense you are actually reliant on biology.
This conversation here is fascinating to me as I'm currently trying to understand the experience of a young person very close to me, assigned male at birth, who has just come out as trans and is using a very feminine-sounding name and she/they pronouns. I find it a bit disconcerting that while my general position is always "support trans people and believe them when they talk about their experience," many of my gut reactions are much more similar to the questions that @Marvin the Martian is raising. I keep thinking (but of course not saying!): "OK, but if you want to wear your hair long and wear skirts occasionally etc, can't you just do that while being a man, only a man who doesn't conform to these narrow societal gender roles?"
I'm finding @Gwai's contributions here very helpful, with the "Would it be better? Would it feel more accurate?" question. This fits very well with what this young person has been telling me, that they are trying new things (like wearing a skirt, or introducing themselves by their new name at a new job) and then sitting those changes for awhile to see how they feel.
It's all very different to me -- like a lot of us in this discussion (I relate most to @Gwai's mom as described above) in that I am absolutely sure that I am a woman, but don't relate to a lot of the typical gender expectations of what "woman" means in our society. So there's that adjustment for me in appreciating how gender has quite a different meaning for someone else -- but as with most things, a lot of it is about listening to other people's experience and accepting that what they're saying is true for them even if it's unfamiliar to me.
Also it should be pointed out that passing as a particular gender is often tied to safety issues even if the trans person themselves is less bothered about gender norms. Being super-feminine in particular is unfortunately often about trying to stay alive for trans women - look at the person attending support meetings for rape victims who was accused of being trans because she wore trousers and a sweatshirt! It can also be an issue for those seeking gender affirming healthcare - in the UK you are expected to live as your 'acquired gender' for at least a year before you can go on hormones, even though hormones do most of the work in terms of passing and often more than even surgery does (aside from top surgery for transmasculine people because you could be 6 foot tall with a big Gandalf beard and still get referred to as 'madam' if you have any kind of bosom). Trans women have been denied hormones for going to meetings with gender clinicians in jeans rather than a dress.
So if people want other folk to feel free to challenge gender norms on appearance and behaviour, it's important to stand up to anti-trans prejudice.
Yes, exactly ... that’s why my own reaction surprised me, because it’s irrational, and really just about my own discomfort. What you said about it being okay to choose something just because you want it is slmost exactly what they said to me when we were talking.
It’s different from the way I learned to think about trans people — that the only reason for transitioning would be such unbearable dysphoria that the person couldn’t go on existing like that and felt transitioning was their only option. It’s still kind of new to me to think about gender as a preference like scrambled vs fried eggs.
So it’s really all about listening, learning, questioning my own reactions and assumptions.
I can definitely see this. Even for cisgender people there’s far more freedom for women to transgress gender norms in terms of dress and appearance than for men — partly, I guess, to do with femininity having less perceived social status/power.
This is a perspective I wouldn’t even have thought of ... which just underlines what I said earlier about my own need to listen and learn.
I have a friend who is a guy who also likes to wear skirts. And he laughed hard telling us tales of other guys who would loudly insist that he was wearing a kilt when - matter of fact - what he was wearing was a skirt.
Personally, I also prefer trousers because I don't like having to be mindful of the position of my body when I'm about doing things.
I think for me that would be because being male/female is a far more fundamental part of someone's ontological existence than merely which clothes they wear or how long their hair is. Like someone saying they're going to move house because they don't like the wallpaper in their lounge - I mean, yes, it's one option, but it has all sorts of costs attached and means complete upheaval of your entire life which seems a bit extreme when you could just put up new wallpaper instead.
Sorry, I'm confused again. I'd so far understood people to be saying that gender identity is an inherent part of who someone is and has always been - and therefore it's wrong to question that identity as if it's merely something the person has decided to be. But here it's being compared to an utterly unimportant choice like how someone cooks their eggs. It feels like the rules keep changing and I'm really struggling to keep up, if I'm honest.
Let me only add that I don't want to erase the line of thinking that correct gender is necessary for life. It is for some people. But for others, it leads to sanity and increased health. And that's good too.
I admit (with apologies to Pomona) that I found the comparison to fried vs. scrambled eggs unhelpful. As I've said before in these parts IME gender identity is something deep-seated and resistant to change and the analogy doesn't really capture that.
Two comments on the issue of choice.
As a matter of common sense, the less stigmatized something is, the more likely it is to be chosen or perceived as chosen. I think many of the important choices we make about our lives (e.g., decisions about what career we want to pursue) are influenced by innate factors beyond our control - or at least should be influenced by these factors if they are going to be good choices for us. But nobody tries to parse out how much of the decision whether to become a doctor or lawyer is due to innate factors.
The other comment is that the concepts of autonomy and choice play increasingly important roles and liberal and progressive thinking and I worry about the potential for this to distort our thinking on a number of issues, not least of them gender identity.
Indeed.
My daughter has a friend who was AFAB, identifies as a boy but presents as a girl (hairstyle, clothes etc.) I don't know that his gender identity is settled yet, to be honest, but there it is. It's much more complicated you might imagine.
To that extent, gender is a social construct for social purpose. The degree to which I need to get invested or involved in someone else's personal identity depends on how socially close I am with them, and for most people, it just doesn't become relevant beyond "this person wants me to refer to their person as a they, so I ought to do that." That's all that's really needed for most situations, I think.
I may have read it wrong, but I thought the scenario was of a boy who wanted to wear skirts and have long hair therefore deciding they had to be (or become) a girl.
As someone whose wife played at a fairly decent level of amateur football back in the day I wouldn't go along with it being associated with being more masculine*, and for that matter I'd say people like Daniel Craig or Harrison Ford are hardly less masculine because they act. And if society says otherwise then I say society is wrong.
But I think that points towards a significant part of where my difficulty with this subject comes from. I don't really think that any activities, fashions, hairstyles, or so forth are inherently masculine or feminine, which to my mind makes them poor reasons to change gender. I mean, I grew up in the 80s watching Boy George on Top of The Pops and loving how his appearance tore apart conservative notions of how boys should dress and act**. It feels like in the Twenty20s a similar person would just come out as female, which to me feels like an affirmation of those conservative notions - it says that if you want to act this way then you have to be a boy and if you want to act that way then you have to be a girl. It feels like the same old restrictive boxes are back, but with a bit of a bridge between them so you can decide which one to be restricted by.
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*= Of course, I'm in the UK so what we mean by "football" may differ.
**= not that I'd have phrased it as such at the time. I was only four or five when Karma Chameleon was released.
Is football inherently more masculine than acting, or is that purely social conditioning? I suppose if you're someone who thinks that gender is a purely social construct, then this question doesn't make much sense.
In this specific case I think Pomona was referring to the situation I
raised: a young person born biologically male (AMAB, I guess, might be the better term) who is coming out as either a trans woman or gender fluid (not sure how they would identify at the moment), using a female-sounding name and she/they pronouns. The only really obvious differences I've observed since their transition is that they have grown their hair long and occasionally wear skirts. My immediate (unspoken) reaction was that they could just be a guy with long hair who wears skirts, but I realize that for them it's about much more than that. They do identify as female, or at least not-male, even if I don't fully understand what that means for them at this point.
Reading some of the discussions here, as well as following trans people on Twitter and reading articles they write or recommend, is part of my own attempt to better understand the actual trans and non-binary people in my life, particularly the one closest to me. I do think the issue of what's "chosen" vs "born this way" is a bit of a fraught area and probably a difficult one for cis folks to understand.
*Here American football is seen as activity very very few women engage in, but soccer much less so.